Swizz Beatz Flosses For PAPER Mag: “It’s Time People Know Who My Friends Are And Who I’m Affiliated With”

Swizz Beatz covers the Music Issue of Paper Magazine and we have to say his swagger is on about 10 thousand billion in the accompanying article. Swizzy is talking that isht, bragging about his current collaborations with Christian Louboutin and Aston Martin as well as his famous friends who he enlisted for his third album Haute Living:

“Man, I crossed bridges in the industry that should stop water,” he says. “Me coming from the South Bronx and partnering up with Christian Louboutin — we’re not supposed to be in that world!”

As for Haute Living, his third album under his own name, he hopes people hear his “growth” as a musician. Swizz has changed some things up, so he can be, he says, “properly judged and compared” to other superstar producers like Dr. Dre, Timbaland and Kanye West. On the album, Swizz has updated his trademark sound. Where there was once nothing but industrial-sounding drums and synthesizers, there are splashes of live instrumentation and melodies. “I still believe less is more — that’s still my concept — but you have to evolve,” he says.

The guest stars on his new album are also a testament to Swizz’s evolution as an artist
and producer. On his first two albums, 2002’s G.H.E.T.T.O Stories, and 2007’s One Man Band Man, Swizz showcased unknown talents like the rapper Cassidy. Haute Living is a star-studded affair. Though he still records with many members of the Ruff Ryders camp (Eve is the featured MC on Haute Living’s first single “Coolin’ (Everyday)”), Swizz’s lineup of guests
is extremely impressive: There’s Bono and Lenny Kravitz to show Swizz’s rock bona fides;
John Legend for some melodic texture; and when it came to MCs only the cream of the crop were allowed on, including Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne. “I thought that it was time people know who my friends are and who I’m affiliated with,” Swizz says.

Who he’s affiliated with? How about getting folks to care about who he is instead?

SMH… Could he be more braggadocious? Do you think Swizzy has earned his bragging rights? Or is it just that we’re more used to rappers boasting and producers being humble?